Abstract

Recently, with rapid increases in the data volume processed in data centers, great expectations are placed on the introduction of optical interconnects with a transmission speed of higher than 10Gbps per channel. Whereas optical interconnects show superior performance in terms of long-distance transmission, high-data rate transmission and low power consumption, the advantage mentioned last is presently drawing special attention, as the consciousness for the environment is on the rise among IT equipment manufacturers. Furukawa Electric has been developing a compact 10Gbps×12ch parallel optical module that is applicable to both inter-equipment and intra-equipment communications in data centers, and by using low-power consumption ICs and our high-efficiency 1 μm-range VCSEL that allows lowbias current driving, we have recently achieved a low power consumption of 7mW/Gbps. This paper presents the structure and characteristics of parallel optical modules.